Tornator: Forest prices are starting to go down

After a year in which foreigners were extremely active in terms of forest acquisitions, 2009 has brought a slowdown on this segment, says Zoltan Kosy, country manager of Tornator, a company that has 12,000 hectares of forest on the Romanian market. "Prices are starting to go down. There are increasingly more forests for sale and people seem to be more flexible when it comes to the price. There are market signals that some buyers are gone, while others have become more prudent in their investments," says the head of Tornator. The Finnish company's plans are not affected by the economic crisis; the initial target, to acquire another 10,000-20,000 hectares in the 2009-2010 period still stands. In the long run, Tornator intends to reach 50,000-100,000 hectares of forest. The average price of a hectare of forest is 2,000-3,000 euros, which would put Tornator's investments on the Romanian market at 100-300 million euros.